It’s such a relief to have some good irreverent humour back on the scene. Was there a lot of, err, brain storming or was this idea a clear winner from the start? Could you tell us please how the brief evolved.

Everyone lumped Kayak together with Orbitz and Priceline, but they are very different. Priceline is an online travel agent, they sell out of their inventory. Kayak is an aggregator, it simply searches sites like Priceline and Orbitz to find you a flight or hotel. So if you love Priceline, Kayak will search there, plus a couple hundred other sites. So the brief evolved into: there is no good reason not to use Kayak. There are, however, stupid reasons. We presented three or four campaign ideas to execute that thought and the simplest way won.

Did director Harold Einstein’s treatment bring any new twists to the plot?

We have some interesting spots: a kilo of white powder, a brain surgeon, flair guns in ceiling – Harold’s number one point was to make it all seem very real.

It’s dark times out there. Clients are currently playing safe with limited risks. Was this brief a hard sell to Kayak?

It’s not dark times for us. We have a lot of new clients and a lot of people calling us asking for work that will get noticed and sell lots of stuff. I can’t remember the last time I was so busy.